Two-thirds of US companies affected by bad hires

by
HRM |
19 Dec 2012

Hiring the right person to fill a position can be difficult – 69% of employers in the United States have been adversely affected by a bad hire this year, with 41% of those estimating the cost to be more than $25,000.

Almost a quarter (24%) said a bad hire cost them more than $50,000 - a recent CareerBuilder survey found.

“Whether it’s a negative attitude, lack of follow-through or other concerns, the impact of a bad hire is significant,” Rosemary Haefner, vice-president of HR at CareerBuilder said. “Not only can it create productivity and morale issues, it can also affect the bottom line.”

The price of a bad hire adds up in a variety ways. The most common are:

less productivity (39%)

lost time to recruit and train another worker (39%)

the cost to recruit and train another worker (35%)

employee morale negatively affected (33%)

a negative impact on clients (19%)

fewer sales (11%)

legal issues (9%)

When classifying what makes someone a bad hire, there were several behavioural and performance-related issues cited, from poor quality work (67%) and failure to work with others (67%) to negative attitude (60%) and attendance issues (54%)

One-in-four employers (26%) said they weren’t sure why they made a bad hire and “sometimes you just make a mistake”. But other common reason associated with a bad hire included needed the position filled quickly (43%), “insufficient talent intelligence” (22%) and using the same sourcing techniques for every position (13%).